''Podilymbus'' is a genus of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

s in the Grebe family, the genus name is derived from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''Podilymbus'', a

contraction Contraction may refer to: Linguistics * Contraction (grammar), a shortened word * Poetic contraction, omission of letters for poetic reasons * Elision, omission of sounds ** Syncope (phonology), omission of sounds in a word * Synalepha, merged ...

of ''podicipes'' ("feet at the buttocks", from ''podici-'', "rump-" + ''pes'', "foot")—the origin of the name of the grebe

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

—and

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

''kolymbos'', "diver".Cabard P. and Chauvet B. (2003). ''Etymologie des noms d'oiseaux'' Belin Eveil éditeur, France

Species

The genus containing the two species: There are also several prehistoric

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

of ''Podilymbus'' described from

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

remains: *''Podilymbus majusculus'' (Late Pliocene of Wisconsin) *''Podilymbus wetmorei'' (Late Pleistocene of Florida) *''Podilymbus podiceps magnus'' - a

paleosubspecies A chronospecies is a species derived from a sequential development pattern that involves continual and uniform changes from an extinct ancestral form on an evolutionary scale. The sequence of alterations eventually produces a population that is p ...

of the pied-billed grebe of uncertain validity.

References

Bird genera Bird genera with one living species Extant Late Pleistocene first appearances Pleistocene birds Pleistocene birds of North America {{Podicipediformes-stub